TEMECULA: City looking to revive youth court

Court of peers would handle first-time offenders

TEMECULA -- Teenagers arrested or cited for petty offenses in
Temecula may no longer be forced to stand before the man in
court.

If Great Oak High School's mock trial team is successful, those
teens will be sentenced by their peers in the city's own youth
court, which would be legally binding and supervised by a Riverside
County Superior Court judge.

The teens who participate in youth court have already pleaded
guilty to their offenses. The teens who "defend" and "prosecute"
their peers do so by recommending different sentences: constructive
punishment that includes writing essays, community service hours
and jail tours.

Temecula's youth court was shut down in 2004 after six years of
"trials" due to county budget cuts. Lake Elsinore and Murrieta
operate their own youth courts. The Southwest Valley Youth Court
was started last year for Murrieta.

Leading the charge to resurrect the youth court in Temecula is
senior Ryan Curnick, captain of the Great Oak mock trial team.

Curnick told the Temecula City Council during a recent meeting
that he had a great time participating in a youth court session in
Lake Elsinore.

"The experience was unimaginable," he said, describing the honor
of defending and prosecuting his peers.

If a youth court is restarted here, Curnick pledged the full
commitment of the mock trial team at Great Oak, which, he said,
includes nine defense attorneys and nine prosecuting attorneys.

Curnick said he has the support of the Riverside County district
attorney's office and a local attorney who has offered to provide
assistance.

He said the missing component is support from the Police
Department and he asked the council to do what it could to help
bring all the key parties together.

Following his comments, Mayor Maryann Edwards asked city
employees to look into the possibility of bringing back the
program, which she called valuable.

In a later interview, Edwards said the program could help reach
some teens who have largely tuned out authority figures.

"A lot of times, kids will listen to each other rather than
adults," she said.

Great Oak's mock trial coach, Randy Jones, said Friday that he
thinks a youth court in Temecula would be a great asset.

"I think it gives our students an opportunity to get some
experience talking in front of a judge and they learn some valuable
things about what's going on in the community," he said.

The young people who are sentenced by a youth court also
benefit, he said, because they get a chance to interact and learn
from their peers, some of the sharpest minds in the school.

Jones, Great Oak's coach for the last five years, said it will
take a little bit of work to get all the details of a new court
ironed out, but he said there's a chance everything will come
together and trials could start later this year.

Temecula Police Chief Jerry Williams said Friday that he has
been asked by City Manager Shawn Nelson to dust off the youth court
proposal the Police Department wrote up last year and see if
there's a way to get it going now.